


Mrs Hudson Works

by afinecollector (orphan_account)



Series: Not Waving but Drowning [36]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Between TSOT and HLV, Epilepsy, Ficlet, Gen, JME, Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy, Motherly relationship - Freeform, Post-Reichenbach, Seizure, Sherlock loves Mrs Hudson, The Sign of Three, The wedding, absence seizure, mentions of John/Mary - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 05:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7921906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/afinecollector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m alright,” He told her, rather more sharply than he’d meant it to sound. </p><p>“I know, dear.” She smiled at him, “You always are.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mrs Hudson Works

He hated nothing more than the emptiness of silence. There being silence around him he could stand, but when his mind fell silent it was dangerous. It meant he was alone, alone even without his thoughts, and that was a disastrous place to be for a man whose mind, when stagnant, sought our dark recreational activities. No amount of music, or reading, or thinking up ways in which he could solicit work from his brother had stemmed the flow of nothingness. Without John, Baker Street was a prison; it no longer felt like home and fill it as he did with the projections of his noisy mind, once silence well it was beyond understanding and further from his reach than those insignificant facts he saw fit to delete. 

He stretched out his legs, his bare feet on point, and threw back his head to hang over the rest of the chair. He stared at the ceiling and rolled up his eyes to see the dusty, heavy curtains that kept the daytime out of the flat. It would be easy to disappear into the darkness his mind craved - at this moment, nobody was looking for him. If he gave up, gave in to the urges, he would be long ‘gone under’ before anybody came up the stairs and into the flat. That would piss Mycroft off. It was harder to be home than he had imagined - he’d craved London in his absence, and hated it now he was here. His short stay with Mycroft had resettled him, and now he felt off kilter again. The wedding was done, a baby would come, and somewhere in his mind, he knew that everything he thought he could return to was gone. Even John was different, _she’d_ changed him. 

“Coo-ee, only me, love,” Sherlock smirked and drew his limbs in, sitting more in a more acceptable position in his chair as he heard Mrs Hudson ascending the stairs. He pulled his feet up, toes wriggling on the edge, and hugged his knees as she stepped through the doorway and hovered in the archway that divided the kitchen and lounge. “Sherlock, the mess you’ve made. Back five minutes and you’ve already turned this place into a dustbin.” 

He followed her with his eyes as she moved around the flat, picking up mugs of half-finished coffee, gone stone cold long ago, and plates of nibbled at toast and untouched meals she’d left for him in the hopes he’d do something more than _sit there_. 

“Are you alright, love?” She asked, pausing. Her right hand rested on her hip whilst her left held a stack of two plates and three precariously balanced cups. “You look a little peaky. Have you taken your medication today?” She set her treasure down on the side table and walked toward him, pushing her hands through his hair in the same way his mother used to do. 

Despite part of him wanting to snap at her to stop, Sherlock smiled at her motherly manner and nodded, “I’m quite alright,” He assured her and reached out his hands, taking her by the wrists gently. He kissed the back of her right hand, a charming gesture he knew she’d like, and received a sweet, almost bashful smile for his efforts. 

“You know,” She said as she moved away, picking up the dishes again to take them to the kitchen, “I got the film developed from my camera. Oh, John and Mary do look lovely. And so happy, so happy and sweet. It’s a lovely thing to see, Sherlock, you’ll have to come and take a look at them. I was thinking of putting them together in an album for them - what do you think?” She peered up from the sink, extracting whatever it was Sherlock had left lying in it, and smiled sadly at the far away stare she was met with. She continued to talk, though, knowing that in a moment he would be back and the conversation would continue as it had. “...I did find this lovely frame in the British Heart Foundation. I was saving it for my sister, but I think it’d be lovely to give to John and Mary. Do you think they’d mind that it’s from a charity shop? It is new, mind you - it’s silver and there’s a lovely little dainty butterfly in one corner. It’s so charming,” She smiled and gave Sherlock her attention again. 

She doubted the blank stare she was met with was the same one as before, and it worried her slightly. She dried her hands in the corner of a tea cloth on the draining board and walked back into the lounge. 

“Sherlock, love,” She said, hovering for a moment. She stepped closer and repeated the movement she’d made before, cupping his cheeks in her hands and feeding her fingers back in his hair to draw it from his face. “Oh, my love…” she flattened her mouth into a thin line and shook her head. She let him go and smiled at him sadly when he blinked and gave a sigh, indicating his return, and looked at her with a frown. 

It didn’t take him long to realise he’d missed a few moments of time; Mrs Hudson wasn’t standing where she had been, and her face seemed sadder than before. “I’m alright,” He told her, rather more sharply than he’d meant it to sound. 

“I know, dear.” She smiled at him, “You always are.” 

He followed her with narrow eyes as she returned to the kitchen and listened as she babbled on about her sister, and the wedding, and ‘wouldn’t it be lovely if John and Mary had a baby’. He let her, comforted by her presence somewhat. If she was here, there was noise, real noise, noise that broke into the stagnation in his brain and made him think - think of ways to kill her, think of ways he couldn’t live without her, think of ways he missed her when he was gone, think of all the ways he prevented Moriarty from being able to touch her. 

She worked, as well as any seven percent solution. Well, perhaps not as well as, but she worked.


End file.
